African-American Passages: Black Lives in the 19th Century Episode 2: The Long Journey of Omar Ibn Said [0:00:00] From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. [Singing]: Do lord, do lord, do remember me, do lord, do lord, do remember me, oh do lord, do lord, do remember, oh do lord remember me, oh when my blood runs chilly and cold, do remember me, oh... Adam Rothman: Greetings from the Library of Congress and welcome to African-American Passages: Black Lives in the 19th Century. This is a podcast that draws from the Library of Congress’s manuscript collections to explore African American history in the era of slavery, the Civil War, and emancipation. My name is Adam Rothman. I teach history at Georgetown University, and I’m currently a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. [0:00:59] In this episode of African-American Passages, we will be tracing the long journey of a remarkable man named Omar Ibn Said. Omar’s autobiography, written in Arabic, was recently acquired by the Library of Congress as part of a unique and important collection of documents. Omar was born in West Africa in 1770. At the age of thirty-seven, he was captured in war, sold to slave traders, and shipped across the Atlantic ocean to Charleston, South Carolina. He lived the rest of his long life enslaved in the United States and never saw freedom again. Yet despite this ordeal, Omar managed to leave his mark on history by writing an autobiography and other letters as well. He made an impression in his own time and now again in ours. [0:01:58] To talk about the long journey of Omar Ibn Said, I’m joined by two distinguished guests. The first is Mary-Jane Deeb, who is the chief of the African and Middle Eastern division of the Library of Congress. Mary- Jane has been responsible the acquisition, preservation, and processing of Adam Rothman Page 1 of 15 Omar Ibn Said’s autobiography and related materials here at the Library. And joining us by phone from New York is the eminent historian Dr. Sylviane Diouf. Sylviane has written many books on Africans in the Atlantic world, including Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas, which was published in 1998, and is now considered a classic in the history of slavery. She was the first director of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library. These are two real experts who can teach us a lot and Omar and his world, and I’m excited to have them here today. [0:03:00] Let me turn to Mary-Jane Deeb first and ask her about this extraordinary collection that now resides at the Library of Congress. Mary-Jane, what are these materials? Mary-Jane Deeb: Well, there are 42 items, and those 42 items are clustered around the autobiography of Omar Ibn Said. So Omar Ibn Said is the man who is the piece de resistance, if you want, of the collection. It is his biography written in Arabic, and it is unique in the sense that it is the only known existent biography in Arabic from by a slave. Adam Rothman: Wow. Mary-Jane Deeb: And I know that Sylviane is going to talk more about it. Adam Rothman: Yeah, well let me interrupt you there. I’m so excited. I’m going to be interrupting everybody all the time because I have so many questions. [0:04:00] I can’t hold myself back. So let’s just focus on this autobiography. How long is it? When was it written? Mary-Jane Deeb: Okay, it’s not very long. It’s 15 pages, and it begins with a prayer. It begins with a verse from the Quran. The interesting thing is what verse it begins with, and it’s called Sūrat al-Mulk. Sūrat al-Mulk – Mulk means dominion or ownership, and it’s interesting that he would start his biography quoting a verse of the Quran that deals with ownership, and in Islam, ownership is only God. Everything belongs to God, nothing really belongs to man. So it’s a way if you want of pointing to the slave owners that really they have no right to own slaves. He never says it. He just puts this verse of the Quran in it. Adam Rothman Page 2 of 15 [0:05:00] And in and of itself is very symbolic. It is only 15 pages long. It speaks highly of his present owner. Of his current owner then, but also it tells a little bit about his own background, and I know that Dr. Sylviane Diouf will talk more about it. But he does speak about inter-tribal warfare in the area between Senegal and Gambia, and he talks about coming to America at the age of 37, which if you think about it at the turn of the 19th century was quite an older age for a man to be captured and brought in. Adam Rothman: Fascinating. We’ll get into his biography in a minute. He lived quite an extraordinary life to get to the point where he could write an autobiography in Arabic as an enslaved person in North Carolina. And I think the year of the autobiography is 1831. So let me ask you one more question about this manuscript. [0:06:15] What condition is it in? Is it written on paper? Mary-Jane Deeb: Yes. Adam Rothman: How has it managed to survive 180 years? Mary-Jane Deeb: Yes, it is written on paper. It is very brittle, very fragile. The paper is not of particularly good quality. It was what he had available then. What is interesting is that it was kept, it was preserved from owner to owner. I think that people realize the importance of this manuscript and kept it and preserved it. And of course by the time it came to the library, the first thing we did was to send it to preservation. Because we wanted to make sure that it would be – it would reach a stable condition. It would be fit for people to look at, and the preservation has already taken place. We’re also scanning it so that people will be able to have access to it digitally from any place around the country and around the world. [0:07:30] And scanning of course and digitizing and making it accessible is a way of continuing the preservation. But each page has been treated. Every page has been studied in terms of the paper, the ink, the condition in which it is in. It has been repaired, and it’s a labor of love. Adam Rothman: Wow, that’s pretty remarkable. It’s remarkable that it’s survived to this day, and I think it’s also extraordinary the steps the library is taking will guarantee that 180 years from now, people will still be able to read and Adam Rothman Page 3 of 15 learn from it. A question for Sylviane. This is not an unknown document, right? This is something that has been known to scholars of the history of slavery for some time. Is that correct? Sylviane Diouf: Yes, first of all, I mean this – the manuscript itself reappeared around I think it was in 1996 or ’97. I remember that it was at the time actually I was writing my book, Servants of Allah, and I went to the auction, hoping that I could buy it, and it was much too expensive for me. But so it was known – I mean we knew it was there since then, but even before that, it had been written about in the 19th century by a number of people, and it has been translated. I think it was in 1848. [0:09:20] So there were records of this autobiography from really kind of the start. As you mentioned, it was written in 1831, but it was sent in 1836 to another African Muslim, and so that was recorded as well, and then it was sent to somebody else. And again, there were writings about these documents. So it’s been known for many, many years. [0:10:00] Adam Rothman: It sounds like the autobiography, the afterlife of the autobiography is almost as interesting as the life of its author, Omar Ibn Said. I think that’s one of the remarkable things about some of these archival collections and manuscripts. They have a history of their own above and beyond the history of their initial production. Sylviane Diouf: Yes. Absolutely. And this is – you know, this is one manuscript, and it’s a very, very important one, but I just want to stress that it’s – and it’s the only autobiography written as we know, written by an enslaved African Muslim that is still extant. But there are many other manuscripts written by African Muslims who were enslaved in different parts of the Americas that are still extant. [0:11:00] Adam Rothman: So it’s really part of a transatlantic and pan-American story of enslaved African Muslims in the Americas. Is that right? Sylviane Diouf: Absolutely. Adam Rothman: Interesting. Well I want to get into Omar Ibn Said’s life because his biography is revealing and it’s interesting, and it takes us into the experience of captivity and the middle passage and the shock of adjustment to life as an enslaved person in America, and I think it might Adam Rothman Page 4 of 15 help for our listeners to just hear at least in translation some of the literal words that Ibn Said wrote about his life.